


Next

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: DISPATCH BOX [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: ACD - Freeform, Canon, Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, Hand Feeding, Hand Jobs, Intimacy, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Victorian, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, naughty words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:56:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock needs to be taken care of by his doctor, and then he returns the favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next

**Author's Note:**

> This follows DISPATCH BOX: Interval

Eventually Sherlock’s back did heal and the incident, although captured in all its glorious inaccuracy in the pages of his scrapbook, faded from our minds. We were incredibly busy through the end of the summer.  
  
We were so busy, in fact, that I became a bit concerned. Cases were coming so quickly that there was virtually no time between them; in fact, they overlapped. Now, a working consulting detective is vastly preferable to an unoccupied one, as the latter tended to invent reasons to fill the sitting-room with vile odours and vapours and engage in even more harmful activities, but Sherlock’s habits when working were taking a toll on him.  
  
He preferred not to eat when he was working—and sometimes he simply forgot—and the same went for sleeping. He would become so engaged in the puzzles that he couldn’t stop thinking about them long enough to drift off. As we moved towards the end of 1894 and the pleasantly cool autumn weather began to give us hints of the winter to come, I noticed a change in my friend.  
  
Always thin and sinewy, he was now—to my eyes at least—growing dangerously gaunt. Dark circles under his once-brilliant eyes betrayed his exhaustion.   
  
*  
  
“Oh, thank goodness that’s over with!” I exclaimed as the last of the reporters was ushered firmly out of our rooms, down the stairs, and out onto the pavement by an exasperated landlady. I didn’t hear a smart retort from my friend, and I turned from the door to look at him. He had been standing by the fireplace, reluctantly describing his deductions to the small crowd, all eagerly taking notes. He was still there—now gripping the mantelpiece tightly. “Are you all right?” I asked, alarmed, moving towards him.  
  
“A bit—” and he nearly fell onto his face.  
  
I dashed forward and caught him, grabbing his shoulders a bit roughly. “Sherlock?” I rasped, my throat tight with anxiety. “Come sit down.” I guided him to his chair and he collapsed into it, his eyes shut. He was grey. “Stay there,” I commanded over my shoulder as I dashed to the door. “Mrs Hudson!” I cried down the stairs.  
  
“What is it?” She came up as quickly as she could, her eyes wide.  
  
“I fear that he has overextended himself. I know it’s late, but could you please prepare…”  
  
“I’ll have something on a tray in ten minutes,” she stated a bit grimly. “Vultures, the whole lot of them,” I heard her grumbling as she marched back down.  
  
I returned to my friend’s side. “How are you feeling?” I asked, gently grasping his thin wrist and taking his pulse. He didn’t reply, his eyes shut. “You’re exhausted,” I supplied grimly for him. “No more work for a bit. You need to rest.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“But nothing, Sherlock. You’re skin and bones, you’re greyer than the ashes in the grate, and your pulse is… well, you don’t need me to tell you, do you? You’ve been going nonstop for months now. It is time to stop for a while.”  
  
He swallowed, the action all the more noticeable as he had lain his head on the back of the chair, exposing a long, white expanse of neck.  
  
“Mrs Hudson is going to bring something up for you to eat, and you are going to eat it, and then you are going to get into bed and sleep for as long as you can manage. All right?”  
  
He nodded, seemingly too tired even to form words.  
  
Mrs Hudson arrived with a tray on which was arranged a platter of cheeses, some of her lovely and hearty bread, and a pot of tea. “Perfect!” I exulted, taking it from her.  
  
“Oh, Doctor Watson!” she giggled. “You’re over-tired as well. I’ll get the tray in the morning. Please make sure he sleeps,” she added as she exited our sitting room.  
  
“Come on,” I said briskly to my friend, who had not moved. I drew up two chairs to his; on one I deposited the tray, and on the other, myself. “Mrs Hudson brought up a nice bit of refreshment.”  
  
He opened his eyes a bit, eyeing the tray and myself warily. “Is there any reason it’s not on the table?” he demanded feebly.  
  
“Well, yes. Yes, there is,” I stated adamantly. “I don’t think you’re even fit enough to sit up at the table at this moment.”  
  
He made an exasperated noise and glared at me.  
  
“Please, Sherlock,” I begged. “I just want to get some food in you and then you can sleep. I want to help. Please let me.”  
  
He nodded his head once; it was almost as if it was too heavy for him to move more, and his eyes shut again.  
  
“I know that you like Cheshire,” I encouraged, putting some on a thick slice of bread. I reconsidered this, however, and without hesitation tore off a small piece—a mouthful. “Here. Open up.”  
  
And yes, I did—piece by piece, bite by bite—I fed Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Hungry myself, whilst he slowly chewed the bit I’d gently pushed into his mouth I would take great mouthfuls of my own. The tray also held Stilton and a delightful Camembert, and to my great surprise a rare treat—oranges. Wily Mrs Hudson—had you realised that we were close to fruition on our work and somehow obtained some of this treat as a celebration?  
  
“Here,” I said as I offered a few segments to my friend—having peeled and seeded them.  
  
It took longer than it should have, but eventually I felt that I had gotten enough nourishment (and tea) into my friend for the moment. He needed now—more than ever—to sleep. “Come along,” I encouraged, grasping his hands and pulling him up. “You’ll feel so much better once you change into nightclothes and get into bed.”  
  
I managed to manoeuvre him into his bedroom and seat him on his bed. He was still wearing his stiff shirt and waistcoat under a dressing gown (he never did care if intruders—especially in the form of reporters—saw him dressed so intimately); he had also traded his boots, as had I, for slippers. I did not hesitate—long practice lent speed to my actions. I withdrew a fresh nightshirt from a drawer.  
  
“Let’s get you changed,” I remarked, more to myself than to him. He was more asleep than awake at that point. I drew his dressing gown off his shoulders, pulled down his braces, and, unfastening his shirt, I pulled both shirt and vest over his head. “Now, just up for a few seconds,” I assured him as I pulled him up and drew down his trousers and drawers. I allowed him to sit again and knelt to remove his slippers and socks and take away his soiled clothing. A sluggish shiver ran through his thin body. “Arms up,” I encouraged as I slipped the soft, warm nightshirt over his head, working his arms into it carefully.  
  
His hair, usually held in check by his hair oil, emerged from the nightshirt’s neck in a glorious crown of dishevelled curls, and despite the gravity of the situation and the lateness of the hour, I smiled affectionately at him. He looked fifteen years younger when he was like this.  
  
“Now, time for sleep,” I remarked gently. By clever manoeuvring, I got him lying down and his bedclothes over him. I patted him gently on the shoulder [a line has been drawn through the word ‘shoulder’ and ‘bottom’ written in] and, turning down the gas, withdrew as quietly as I could, closing the door behind me.  
  
I tidied the sitting room a bit—covering the now-empty tray (we both certainly had been hungry) and banking the fire. I turned down the gas and retreated to my own bedroom, and there repeated the removal of street clothes. I slid my own nightshirt over my head with a contented sigh. I was rather gleefully anticipating a long sleep, followed by an extravagant breakfast and an entire day with my feet up, reading something other than reports from constables with atrocious spelling.  
  
My head had barely touched my pillow when I felt an irresistible pull. I had to check on him again.  
  
I dragged myself out of my comfortable bed and padded over to the door that joined mine to Sherlock’s. Without pausing I opened it and walked quietly in. “What’s the matter?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Why aren’t you sound asleep?” He was sitting up in his bed, his knees up, and he was resting his head upon them—I could barely make him out in the dim light that I had left on for him.  
  
“I can’t… it’s all spinning.”  
  
“Oh, Sherlock,” I sighed, crossing the room and sitting on his bed. “You’re over-tired. You know this happens to you.”  
  
“Yes,” he agreed, his voice tight.  
  
“What can I do to help?” I inquired gently.  
  
“I don’t know,” he replied plaintively.  
  
“Lie back down,” I instructed. He did so, turning away from me. I tugged the bedclothes up to cover him and began rubbing his back through the blankets.  
  
Five minutes later he made an exasperated, rather desperate noise. “It’s no good, John,” he sighed. “I can’t fall asleep no matter how much I want to. My mind keeps returning to the scene at the Addletons’, and Crosby’s face, and the argument we had at the Russian embassy. I feel like I’m flying apart.”  
  
I thought about it. I truly did. If anyone else ever sees these notes [a pencilled note in large letters states: We would be arrested!] I want to make it perfectly clear that when I entered his room, and even at that moment, seated on his bed and rubbing his bony back through his bedclothes, I had absolutely no intention beyond helping him to shut down that great brain of his and get some much-needed sleep. My ruminations culminated in one single thought.  
  
“Budge over,” I instructed as I raised the bedclothes and slipped underneath them. He was clearly beyond coherent thought, as he did not raise even a hint of protest. And then (and yes it was eagerly—in hindsight I can admit it) I wrapped myself around him.  
  
It was like holding a collection of fireside tools clothed in the softest of fabrics. He was far, far too thin—I had been horribly lax in my ministrations as his physician, I realised belatedly. How long had he been operating on nothing but tea and his own uncanny self-control? I felt culpable for his current state.  
  
“I am so sorry,” I whispered into his ear. “I haven’t been taking care of you.” I stroked the delicate shell of his ear with my finger.  
  
“Not your responsibility,” he murmured back. “That feels nice,” he added.  
  
“I want you to calm down and sleep,” I explained, and I did mean that.  
  
“Will you stay with me?” he asked somewhat wistfully.  
  
“If it helps, certainly.”  
  
“It does.”  
  
“All right, then. Hush. Let me take care of you, all right?”  
  
I pressed my body to his. After all our frenetic activities, I myself had lost a few pounds, but the man cradled against my chest was little more than skin and bone. “You’re disappearing on me,” I murmured reproachfully. “Starting tomorrow, Mrs Hudson and I are going to be feeding you up.”  
  
“You never were fat,” he commented. I frowned. What in heaven’s name did that mean? I cast my memory back. Ah. Yes. I had told him about my wife’s hurtful comments pertaining to that particular aspect of my aging body, and for some reason he had retained it.  
  
“Well, thank you for that,” I replied, genuinely touched. “Do you want… anything… I mean would you like me to rub your back or your head?” (I have not yet described how I dealt with his headaches but that was one of my ministrations.)  
  
“Mmm. No. Just… just stay where you are. I haven’t felt warm in weeks.”  
  
“I’m so sorry. I’ve been neglecting you.” I was completely heartfelt—and somewhat horrified that I had let him slip this far away from me.  
  
“No. We’ve both been working, and I am an adult. Am I not charged with my own caretaking?” He sounded miserable; as if, I realised, he had failed in some complex task or puzzle.  
  
“You are not like everyone else,” I offered, sincerely. “You use your brain for solving unsolvable puzzles. It’s not at all surprising that you forget to take care of your more worldly needs.”  
  
“You are very kind, but it’s still the same thing. I can tell from a glance if footprints are from a guilty person running or an innocent person strolling, but I cannot—and I have tried—to identify when I am hungry, or tired, or simply overworked and in need of something else on which to dwell.”  
  
“Sherlock,” I admonished with complete honesty, “do you expect that everyone can be a surgeon?”  
  
“No, of course not.”  
  
“Or a brick layer?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Exactly. You certainly don’t feel bad that you are not a surgeon; correct?”  
  
“Correct.”  
  
“Or even a fair-to-middling doctor like myself.”  
  
“You’re better than that, John!” he protested, and I smiled at his faith in me.  
  
“So, that being said,” I pursued, “why would you assume that you can take care of yourself in terms of those aspects of life that you—in your own words—have told me are ‘boring?’”  
  
There was a fairly long silence. I could practically feel him turning this over in his head.  
  
“I don’t know… I’m very tired,” he admitted.  
  
“All right. That’s fine. That’s exactly what I’m saying. You solve mysteries and are brilliant at it. You have not, in your entire life, washed a shirt or cooked an egg. Everyone does what they are intended to do. You are clearly meant to identify criminals and not worry about things like eating and sleeping. And that’s fine.” I interjected the last sentence as he feebly raised a protest.  
  
“But…” he murmured.  
  
“But nothing,” I replied adamantly. “You are a detective and your job is to figure out puzzles and help people. I am a doctor and my job is to take care of people—to help them when they are injured or ill. Mrs Hudson keeps us fed and clean. Lestrade manages crime scenes and underlings and you… do you get my point?”  
  
“Yes. I suppose.”  
  
“Oh, good, Then you will find it amazingly simple to allow me to relax you enough to fall asleep, and you will listen to me—your doctor, remember?—when I say that you should quite literally stay in bed for as long as you can. You only place your feet on the floor to use the pot, all right?”  
  
He considered this. I rubbed his thin shoulder and pressed myself up even more tightly against his shuddering frame.  
  
“I suppose,” he finally agreed.  
  
“Excellent. Now, please stop talking and relax. I’m here with you and I am not going to leave.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes. Until I have to get up myself. Is that all right?”  
  
He didn’t reply.  
  
“Sherlock, I asked if that was all right.” I prodded, gently. I really did want to ascertain if this was a comfort or an intrusion.  
  
“Yes…” he sighed. “I… it feels very nice.”  
  
“All right then,” I responded evenly. “Let yourself fall asleep and I’ll be here when you awake.”  
  
I did not admit then to myself how much my heart pounded in my chest when he pronounced the sensation of me pressing myself to him as ‘very nice.’” It was more than I could ever have hoped for.  
  
*  
  
True to my word, I stayed in bed with him until he stirred. (All right, I did slide out to use the pot but he was sound asleep and didn’t even notice that I was gone.) I had been exhausted myself, and he really did have the better bed. And there was something very nice about holding his frail frame in my arms; breathing in tandem with him. My wife hadn’t been keen on anything like that and we had maintained separate bedrooms.  
  
Finally, though, I could stand it no more. Having not been nearly as exhausted as he, I accepted my nine blissful hours with good grace and rose. I stumbled to my own room and found a dressing gown. I knew that Mrs Hudson wouldn’t be expecting us to be on “company” behaviour, so I rang for coffee and breakfast whilst still thus attired. I give her credit—she did not bat an eye. She delivered a covered tray and took away the previous night’s leavings with nary a quiver. “He’s still abed, I take it?” she commented, tipping her head in the direction of Sherlock’s closed door.  
  
“Yes. He had a hard time falling asleep. He was so keyed up.” I thought that my manner was casual.  
  
“But did he finally drift off?” she asked.  
  
“Yes,” I supplied. “I was with him.”  
  
I had no idea why I had told her that.  
  
*  
  
I enjoyed my breakfast and coffee. I glanced at the newspapers—not entirely thrilled with the latest articles on my friend, but at least they weren’t filled with gross inaccuracies. I put aside the pages from which I would need to glean clippings—I wondered briefly if my surgical skills were up to the task—as, accordingly to his Highness—I cut things crookedly. I smiled at this recollection. He could be so very—silly. And amusing and brilliant and fascinating and…  
  
It was time to check on him.  
  
I stole into his bedroom. I had turned down the gas entirely when I had arisen; the ambient light that crept around his heavy curtains illuminated the chamber enough that I was able to walk easily over to his bed. I leant over his still figure, examining his face. It was relaxed in a way that I hadn’t observed in months. I smiled at the innocent expression.  
  
And then he stirred.  
  
“Mmph,” he muttered indistinctly, and I noted immediately that his expression had changed from calm to perturbed.  
  
“What is it?” I heard myself ask.  
  
“Need…”  
  
I examined him carefully and calculated. Yes, I knew what he needed. And, dear reader (who will be just me), did I hesitate? Why should I? In hindsight, I realise that perhaps I should not have done what I did. But at that moment I most certainly did know what my beloved required, and I knew how to help.  
  
“Up,” I instructed whilst simultaneously helping him to sit up.  
  
“Mmph?” he murmured, perplexed.  
  
“Just sit there a moment,” I whispered. I reached under the bed and retrieved what I was after. I was not a bit shy—being in the army and a doctor as well relieves one of all those sorts of feelings. I tugged his nightshirt up and, carefully positioning him and what I was holding, I whispered, “It’s all right. Go ahead.”  
  
I cannot describe my relief when he did just that.  
  
“Good job,” I murmured and kissed his cheek. “Now, lie down again.” I put down the pot and helped him to reposition himself. “Is that better?”  
  
“Yes,” he admitted, dopey and slow with sleep.  
  
“Then go back to sleep,” I instructed.  
  
“Can’t…” he admitted after about five minutes, during which I gently rubbed his back.  
  
“Why not?” I inquired, concerned. “You need to, so much.”  
  
“Don’t know.”  
  
“Yes, you do,” I batted back.  
  
“Yes, I do,” he admitted.  
  
“Do you want me to lie down with you again?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“All right.”  
  
I did just that—as I had done the night before—sliding under the bedclothes and holding him close. We both fell asleep.  
  
*  
  
It was, I believe, approximately two hours later that I awoke. I was curled around my… my companion. Yes. I was in bed with my companion, curled up around him, with a protective arm thrown across his shoulder, in a way that I had longed for but never achieved with my own wife. He was relaxed and content, and I was—rigid.  
  
Well, this was awkward, I reflected. Perhaps if I just lay there, very still, and thought about the tasks ahead of me—I should review my bills and order new boots and write up all of our recent cases…  
  
“You need to rub it against something or rub it with your hand,” Sherlock said. I could tell that he had a sleepy smile on his face even though he had his back to me.  
  
“I… what?” I responded, somewhat less coherently than I had intended.  
  
“You explained that to me, months ago. You said that one can either rub against something or—”  
  
“Yes, I do recall that now, thank you,” I interrupted.  
  
He rolled over to face me without breaking my hold, and yes, he was smiling. “You see, I do pay attention to you,” he remarked impishly.  
  
“So you don’t know that we do not currently have a king, but _that_ you remembered?” I groaned. Having him still in my arms, with his faces inches from mine, was not helping my situation. I was mortified. He nodded, looking a bit crestfallen.  
  
“Why?” he queried. “Is it a bad thing?”  
  
“No. It’s a private thing, though.”  
  
He frowned. “You said it was quite normal. Surely this has happened to you in front of others before? When you were away at school, or in the army?”  
  
“A long time ago, yes,” I admitted, “but it’s been a while.”  
  
“What about the… wife… marriage… you know.” He seemed perplexed.  
  
“We didn’t usually wake up in the same bed, or room,” I admitted.  
  
“Never?”  
  
“On occasion. When we were travelling together, but I don’t recall it specifically.”  
  
“So then it probably was not an issue,” he reasoned.  
  
I considered this. Had it been an issue? Had it ever even happened? I did not recall with great precision any particular incident. Mrs Watson had not been the most affectionate of creatures, I had discovered after we were wed. Oh, she was sweet, and gentle, and doted on me in other ways—I rarely had to light a cigarette for myself when she was in the sitting room with me—but our actual marital relations had not been terribly encouraging. I did not and still do not think it was my doing; other feminine creatures to whom I had given my attentions had had only praise for my actions. We had just not seemed to be complementary to one another in that way.  
  
“I think it was not an issue because it never came up.” The absurd humour of my wording struck me as the words left my lips. I winced. “I did not mean for that to sound so crude,” I apologised.  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
I sighed. _“Up,_ Sherlock?”  
  
He glared at me, and then his features brightened. “Oh! A double meaning. How amusing.”  
  
“You are a ridiculous man,” I commented.  
  
“Yes,” he agreed, “but that is not what we were discussing.”  
  
“I don’t wish to discuss it any longer.” I shut my eyes.  
  
“But you are still… I’m not sure of the correct word,” he admitted.   
  
I opened my eyes again at his candour. He was gazing at me earnestly, his head nestled on the pillow; my arm under him, just at the nape of his neck. I could feel his chest move when he breathed; it brushed against mine.  
  
“Then we won’t continue discussing it,” I repeated, and indeed the issue was becoming rather a moot point; I was flagging a bit.  
  
“Why?” He sounded frustrated and confused. I hated it when he sounded that way.  
  
“It’s not something that one discusses with one’s friends,” I tried to explain.  
  
“But when I awoke in that condition, we did discuss it.”  
  
“That’s because it was a new experience for you. I was instructing you.”  
  
“So why now, when I have simply repeated back to you what you taught me, is it something that we’re not supposed to discuss?”  
  
He had me there. I had—using those very words—told him what he had said, and he had applied the concept quite correctly to my situation. Why was that different? He was only trying to be helpful.  
  
And then I realised that, in his own mad way, he was being incredibly helpful. By his words and attentions, he was letting me know that he was not embarrassed or uncomfortable with the situation.  
  
“I don’t know,” I finally told him. “That’s just the way it is. Things that are to happen between a man and wife are not discussed with others very much.”  
  
“Now we’re back to husbands and wives?” he snapped bitterly.  
  
“What’s the matter? Why is this so upsetting?” I brushed a bit of something out of his hair.   
  
“I don’t understand why we can’t talk of it. I just want to make you feel nice that same way that we did for each other.” His tone changed, and he looked down so I couldn’t see his eyes. “I want to rub it with my hand,” he admitted.  
  
I stared at him in some shock. “You do?” I finally managed to stammer.  
  
“Yes. May I? Or would you rather you rubbed it against something? I could feel it rubbing against me when you first woke up.”  
  
“Did you?” I hadn’t meant to say that. I had meant to apologise for the intrusion, get out of his bed, retire to my own room, get dressed, and go for a long walk—alone.  
  
“Yes. It was… different,” he mused. “You still had your arms around me and that was very nice, and then there was this different sensation. I found it interesting.”  
  
“You would.”  
  
“It’s not very consistent,” he commented somewhat critically. “It was poking me in the back not long ago, and now it’s gone all soft again, and that’s a shame because I really would like to rub it. I want to make you feel all lovely. I think of that morning often,” he commented, surprisingly dreamily for him. “It really was quite extraordinary.” There was a pause, and then he commented rather brilliantly: “Oh! It’s getting stiff again, is it not?”  
  
I saw no reason nor way to dissemble or try to disguise the truth. He was the most observant man in England, we were facing each other, my arms were around him still, and his observation was entirely correct. “Yes, it is,” I agreed.  
  
“I want to rub it. Please—please may I?” he begged.  
  
I nodded, and with that simple motion both of our lives changed quite dramatically.  
  
*  
  
He was very careful. Looking me in the eye, he reached under the bedclothes and gently tugged at my nightshirt until it was up near my waist. “There,” he breathed. “It’s nicer when it’s all bare.”  
  
“Yes,” I breathed back.  
  
“I like being bare,” he admitted. “Sometimes on warm nights I take off my nightshirt and lie on top of the bedclothes quite naked. Oh!” His exclamation was the result of my organ taking a distinct interest in the image he had just created in my head. “What was that?”  
  
“I like the idea of you being naked, lying here on your bed, so close to my own bedroom,” I explained.  
  
“Imagery,” he muttered, as if storing the information away. “Is that common—to picture something pleasant?”  
  
“Yes. It’s quite normal,” I assured him. “More accurately, though, it would be picturing something arousing.”  
  
“So the image of me bare on my bed is arousing?”  
  
“Apparently so,” I admitted.  
  
“So may I please touch you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He slid his hand under the bedclothes and laid it, gently, on my hip. My heart began to beat so hard I knew that he would notice. I am sure that I became flushed. Just the idea—the anticipation—of his touch was extremely arousing.  
  
He moved his hand, very carefully, and the smallest of sounds escaped my lips as his fingertips brushed across the taut skin of my prick. “It’s so warm,” he commented. “The skin is so smooth,” he added, running one finger from base to tip.  
  
“Oh… that feels very nice,” I managed.  
  
“I’m not sure of what else to do—except what we did before. I’ve been practising,” he admitted, and chuckled as my prick greeted that image eagerly. “Sometimes at night and sometimes in the morning. I prefer to do it when you’re in the next room.”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“Mmm. I’ve been experimenting. Trying different things. Is that all right?”  
  
“It’s… fine.” My prick was beginning to leak a bit, and he hadn’t even really touched it yet.  
  
“Shall I show you?”  
  
“Oh, God, yes.”  
  
*  
  
Sherlock is a frighteningly fast learner, and this was no exception. He stroked me up and down several more times with that single finger, until I was almost squirming at his touch. He brushed a fingertip across my slit. “What is this?” he asked, encountering the fluid there.  
  
“I’ll explain later.”  
  
“Can I see?” I nodded and he drew down the covers. “I think it would be nice if you were all bare,” he noted, tugging at my rucked-up nightshirt.  
  
I was bare.  
  
“It’s mostly clear,” he commented, brushing his thumb over my leaking prick.  
  
“No, you may not have a sample,” I had the wit to say.  
  
“Hmm,” was his comment.  
  
“Please.” My voice was tight.  
  
“Oh! Sorry. Yes.” And with that, he wrapped his long fingers around my prick and began to—as he described it—rub.  
  
I cannot describe the sensation except to say that it was one of the most amazing, wonderful things I had ever felt up until then. His hand, so different from mine, kept producing surprises—firm and then lax; slow strokes and then faster ones—but with a gradual increase that made perspiration spring up all over my skin. He used his little finger to tickle my balls. I looked directly at him at that point.  
  
“We didn’t do that,” I pointed out.  
  
“I figured it out on my own,” he admitted, smiling a bit wickedly.  
  
“You’re very clever,” I praised him. “Do that some more.”  
  
He obliged me, happily.  
  
“John,” he whispered.  
  
“Mmm? God, that feels…”  
  
“This is very stimulating.”  
  
“Uuhh yes,” I managed as he added a slight twist and rubbed his thumb over the slit again.  
  
“I’m stiff now as well.”  
  
I smiled broadly. “Of course you are. That’s fine.”  
  
“Can you help me when I’m done helping you?” he wondered, simultaneously increasing the pressure and rate of movement.  
  
And then it occurred to me—it was something that I had longed to do for ages. It was perfect.  
  
“I can do something even better,” I promised him. “Take off your clothes.” I almost whimpered as he removed his hand from me and tore his nightshirt over his head. “And now…”  
  
“Oh!” His exclamation was due to my quite suddenly rolling us so that he was flat on his back and I over him, my body propped up on my hands. His eyes were dark. “What are you going to do?” he breathed.  
  
“I think that I would like to rub against something, and I think that you would like that as well.”  
  
“How?”  
  
I arranged myself so that my legs and his were intertwined. His eyes were fixed on mine. He trusted me completely.  
  
So I lined up our cocks and let myself down onto him and—I thrust.  
  
“Oh!” he exhaled. “That is… exquisite.”  
  
I had to agree.  
  
*  
  
This was so intimate—even more so than our first encounter. I could look down and see his beautiful face. His eyes were now shut and his mouth was open. It was a study in contrasts—white pillowcase, dark hair (now delightfully mussed), pale skin—skin that was now taking on a decidedly rosy glow. I knew that my own face, even though of a darker shade and decidedly more weathered, was similarly shaded.  
  
I was still holding my chest up and away from his, and from my vantage point I could bend my head and look down to where our bodies were now pressed against one another. I gasped. It was—beautiful. I could just see the heads of our pricks, mine glistening. I could feel every inch of his cock (which I have not yet described—I must remember to do so) as it rubbed along mine. My hips began to move in a regular, slow, and deep undulation, and I could feel his do the same, echoing my motion until we were both thrusting quite hard.  
  
“Do you want it faster?” I managed to get out, breathless as I was becoming.  
  
“Please.” He was growing equally winded.  
  
I obliged, and he returned the favour, and this time when I managed a glimpse, I could see that his cock was beginning to leak a bit as well. By then I was thrusting almost ferociously and he was meeting me with every bit as much enthusiasm.  
  
“Oh…” he murmured, sounding a bit surprised.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“It’s all… it feels different.”  
  
I smiled. I knew what that meant. “You are close,” I explained. “Give into it.”  
  
“I… how…?” and I didn’t have to answer his question as with one last, deep thrust I felt his ejaculate, hot and lovely, as it spurted between us. I was so very close to the edge myself that I could not still myself even though I knew that my continued thrusts would soon be overwhelming.  
  
And then I felt the tell-tale tingling and tightening and, with a cry of delight, I joined him.  
  
*  
  
We lay still for a minute, both panting, until I realised that I should probably get off him and allow him to breath properly. I was utterly spent, though, and the most energetic movement I could manage was to roll off him so that I was on my side, my leg and arm still thrown over him. I found that I couldn’t stop smiling and couldn’t stop looking at his face, pink and gleaming. He was beautiful.  
  
And then—he laughed.  
  
It was not a sarcastic snicker or a burst of condescension, as I sometimes heard from him. It was not even the soft chuckle he was known to offer when faced with something ridiculous. No, this was a very different sound. This seemed to be a pure, simple outburst of joy.  
  
“What are you thinking about?” I demanded with great pleasure.   
  
“We are both in dire need of a wash,” he giggled.  
  
“Is that it? Everything we’ve just done and…” and I found that I couldn’t keep up the tone of mock outrage I had attempted. I laughed myself, and that made him laugh even harder, until we were both positively roaring.  
  
“Oh, my,” I finally sighed, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.  
  
He sobered then as well, and my stomach dropped a bit as his expression changed from blissful to thoughtful. “What’s the matter?” I demanded instantly. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Yes. I’m splendid,” he responded distractedly.  
  
“Then what is it?” I sat up and gazed down at him, running my fingers through the riot of curls that now covered his head (apparently even Sherlock’s hair oil was not entirely impermeable).  
  
“I have never felt better—or more pleasure—in my life,” he explained carefully, “but I find myself not knowing quite how to categorise it.”  
  
“Categorise it?” I was fairly sure I knew what he meant, but wanted to be sure.  
  
“Yes. I want to remember this—every minute—but I find that I don’t have…” he paused and looked somewhat bewildered.  
  
“Don’t have what, my darling?” I caressed his thin cheek and cradled his face in my hand.  
  
“I don’t believe that I have sufficient vocabulary to adequately describe it all.”  
  
And like that, I was laughing again. He smiled at me a bit hesitantly, the way he did when he knew that he had said something amusing but didn’t quite get the joke himself. “Oh, my dear,” I exclaimed. “Don’t worry. I will teach you all the words that you need. All right?”  
  
“That would be satisfactory, yes,” he nodded solemnly.  
  
“Very well. You shall have your first lesson whilst I wash you. Lie back.”  
  
And whilst I employed water and basin and cloth and towel to both his body and my own, I taught Sherlock Holmes several words that until then he had had no idea he needed to know.  
  
*  
  
“Now, as your doctor, I am instructing you to stay here in bed whilst I arrange for a very nice, very large breakfast for you, and you will eat it right here.” He looked nonplussed. “I will bring a tray into you, and I am going to feed you every bite, and then you are going to sleep some more, all right?”  
  
“I’m not tired anymore.”  
  
I smiled and patted his hand. “You will be. One of Mrs Hudson’s full breakfasts and you’ll be sound asleep in less than an hour.”  
  
“Where will you be when I’m sleeping?” He sounded petulant and anxious.  
  
“I will be right out in the sitting room, paying some bills and catching up on a number of other things,” I explained, smiling affectionately at his tone. “But if you are very good, this evening I will allow you to have supper at the table with me, and then you can lie on the sofa and I will read to you.”  
  
“What do you intend to read?” he inquired suspiciously.  
  
I chuckled at his dubious tone. “There’s a full accounting of the execution of ‘The Strand Strangler’ that I am sure will keep your interest.”  
  
“Oh. Well, then. All right.” His smile spoke volumes.  
  
*  
  
[At the end of this piece is a note penned in Sherlock’s distinctive penmanship.]  
  
 _I still have the list of words you taught me. Shall I add it to this pile? SH_  
  
[And there is a space, and then an additional note:]  
  
 _I don’t think I need any of those words to tell you this: I do love you._  
  



End file.
